Canada\u2019s political fraternity, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his predecessor Stephen Harper, has reacted with shock and grief at the sudden demise of veteran Indo-Canadian politician Deepak Obhrai, the first Hindu to be elected to the country\u2019s House of Commons and the longest-serving Conservative Party MP in that chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obhrai, 69, passed away on Friday in Calgary, in the province of Alberta, surrounded by the family, just weeks after he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of liver cancer. He is survived by his wife Neena, three children, and their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trudeau expressed his condolences and described Obhrai as \u201ca champion of diversity and human rights. He will be remembered for his dedication to the Indo-Canadian community and his hard work on behalf of Albertans and all Canadians.\u201d Harper, under whom Obhrai served as parliamentary secretary in the foreign affairs department, said that his \u201clegacy is his life-long commitment to Canada, which he served with energy and distinction wherever he went at home or abroad\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obhrai was first elected to the House of Commons in 1997, and re-elected ever since and was a sitting MP and was, in fact, preparing to face election for an eighth term during the Federal polls in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obhrai, who was born in Tanzania and had roots in Punjab, was a strong proponent of closer ties between India and Canada. He was founder-chair of the CanadaIndia Parliamentary Friendship Group and also organised Diwali celebrations in Parliament since 1998, making Canada the first western democracy to do so, Obhrai was honoured the prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the Indian government in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obhrai also ran for leadership of the Conservative Party in 2016 and the person who emerged victorious in that contest, Andrew Scheer, said he was \u201cheartbroken\u201d to hear of Obhrai\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canada\u2019s political fraternity, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his predecessor Stephen Harper, has reacted with shock and grief at the sudden demise of veteran Indo-Canadian politician Deepak Obhrai, the first Hindu to be elected to the country\u2019s House of Commons and the longest-serving Conservative Party MP in that chamber. Obhrai, 69, passed away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67661,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67659\/revisions\/67661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}